An example of paradigm in William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy is the different ways that the characters conceptualize Artificial Intelligences. The different schemes — one that relies on an awareness of the history of the Tessier-Ashpool clan and the refragmentation of the being created when Neuromancer and Wintermute combined, the other appealing to Voodoo spirituality and religious ideas of possession — represent two differing ways of comprehending the AIs' complex machinations. In this sense, the AIs, with their hidden, incomprehensible motives, are similar to Donna Haraway's vision of nature as a "coding trickster" with whom we must converse.
Last modified 18 December 2006